Homemade Powdered Laundry Soap

Here's what you need for powdered laundry soap.

I decided to make the bare bones version of the homemade laundry soap.  It's the easiest and the cheapest, two things I like!

1 bar of Fels-Naptha soap
1 cup Washing Soda
1 cup Borax

Grate the soap.

I pulsed it in the food processor to get it as close to "powder" consistency as I could.

Mix in the Washing Soda and Borax.  This is a double batch.  It didn't mix as nicely as I thought it would.

There's a little over 5 1/2 cups in this jar

and I have a lot of Borax and Washing Soda left.

Use 1 tbsp. per load.  Increase to 2 tbsp. for dirty/soiled clothing.  Give the jar a good shake before each load.  I washed a load of towels right away and they turned out clean and smelled good.  They really didn't have a strong smell, but they didn't smell bad.

There are a lot of variations of this recipe online.  I've seen different recipes with Ivory soap, baking soda, scent boosters, tea tree oil, essential oils and/or OxyClean added.  

There were a lot of comments online regarding the safe use of this soap in HE washers.  Also there were alot of comments on how this soap should be used with warm/hot water and may not disolve fully in cold water.  I haven't tried it in cold water yet.  It was also mentioned that this soap does not suds.  

There are liquid recipes for homemade laundry soap but after I read about it molding and geling, I wan't interested in trying that.

Cost breakdown:  Fels Naptha $.97, Borax $3.38, Washing Soda $3.24.  All of these items were in the laundry isle at Wal-Mart.  All I need is a few more bars of the soap and  I could make tons more.

Since I have no desire to do math, here is a cost comparison someone did online.

Tide per load cost .23

Homemade Detergent cost per load .07

                     OR

40 loads of Tide $9.24 at Walmart

40 loads of Homemade Detergent $2.80

Have you tried a homemade laundry soap?  How did it turn out?